If you shout...
Rock n' Roll Doggie VIP PASS
So, you can purchase Challengers, the new album from the most consistent of Canada's indie-supergroups, The New Pornographers, by way of Matador's spectacular "Buy Early, Get Now" campaign at www.buyearlygetnow.com; you can even start streaming the album right off the bat, once you place your order! As an added bonus, you're pretty much entitled to every scrap of music the band decides to release (B-Sides, Remixes, Live Shows, etc.) until, it seems, their next album comes out. It's a killer deal topped off with a special edition collector's case for all the goods, and it's a welcome throwback to the days when buying an album really meant something. Here is a band (and a label, more importantly--the campaign for the Wowee Zowee re-release, last year, was unreal) which seems to understand what it is that makes buying a record, rather than just hearing it, so special--something extra. We had it with LPs, and there was even a time when we had it with CDs, but this seems to me to be a pretty good way to maintain that all, here in the digital era.
Anyway...! The album also happens to be terrific! It's right up there with The Ike Reilly Assassination's We Belong to the Staggering Evening, Dan Deacon's Spiderman of the Rings, and SFA's Hey Venus!, duking it out to hold the early top spot on my "Best of 2007" list.
Bejar's contributions are spectacular, especially "Myriad Harbour" and the Destroyer cover, "The Spirit of Giving," which, due primarily to his shockingly magnificent vocal turn, may very well be one of the best songs this band has ever committed to tape (ie, it's one of the best songs you'll ever hear, since those're the kinds of songs which this band writes).
"My Rights Versus Yours," the lead single, is fairly representative of the album, as a whole--a slightly more somber and restrained affair, on the whole, which sounds like a cross between Twin Cinema (the band's second masterpiece and third album, released in 2005) and Newman's long-forgotten solo record, Slow Wonder. Great hooks still abound, but there's less explosive energy and reckless, everything-plus-the-kitchen-sink production. Things have a bit of a folksy feel which, as interviewers have correctly elicited from Newman, recalls rather distinctly a certain band they call Fleetwood Mac. The record is unashamedly ambitious both in terms of its regally complex arrangements (not to mention vocal harmonies!) and its semi-radical re-alignment of the band's sound. It's not radical music by any standard, but it's certainly a pronounced shift.
It's nothing at which Twin Cinema didn't hint, but it's still pretty sizeable of a change. Really, the only two songs which I think feel slightly out of place are the only two songs which sound like The New Pornographers--"All the Things That Go to Make Heaven and Earth" and "Mutiny, I Promise You." They're not bad songs (although "Heaven" is a barely-disguised rewrite of "It's Only Divine Right"), and "Mutiny" has some jaw-dropping moments of its own, but the real thrills are in the new sounds and arrangements.
"All the Old Showstoppers" piles on the campy fun and some great harmonies, "Challengers" (the first title-track not to kick off a New Pornos album!) features a typically gorgeous lead vocal from Neko Case (as does the pitch-perfect "Go Places"), "Failsafe" busts out the tremolo guitar and puts Kevin Shields to shame, and the Bejar tracks, as I said, kick untold amounts of ass. I swear, I will never understand how I can hate 90% of the man's solo recordings, as Destroyer, and love to fucking death every piece of music he writes with this band. It's uncanny.
"Myriad Harbour" alone has more gems than do most entire albums:
"I took a train, I took a plane...ah, who cares? You always end up in the city."
"I said to John, 'Do you think the girls here ever wonder how they got so pretty? Oh, well...I do...'"
"All the girls fall into ruin--droppin' outta school, breakin' daddy's heart--just to hang around."
"Someone, somewhere, asked me, 'Is there anything I can help you with?' ...All I ever wanted help with was you."
And to make things that much cooler, the band has again hired a producer simply to assist with the drum sound (I can't remember the man's name, for some reason...sorry!), which IS FUCKING AMAZING, YET AGAIN!!!!! I'm a stickler for perfect drum sonics, and these, at least in my book, are as close to perfect as I'm likely to hear. Cavernous, crsip, sweeping, and melodic all at the same time, they literally get me weak in the knees. If Mass Romantic had sounded like this, nobody would be talking about Pet Sounds, anymore. That's a fact.
Anyway, buy it. This album is good enough to change water into wine. No joke. I was talking about the Bejar song, "The Spirit of Giving," earlier--need I really say more than, "There is an album upon which Neko Case sings and doesn't deliver its best vocal performance"? I hope not.
I also hope that you love it as much as I do. Buy it and listen! Support artists who support fans! Holla!
Anyway...! The album also happens to be terrific! It's right up there with The Ike Reilly Assassination's We Belong to the Staggering Evening, Dan Deacon's Spiderman of the Rings, and SFA's Hey Venus!, duking it out to hold the early top spot on my "Best of 2007" list.
Bejar's contributions are spectacular, especially "Myriad Harbour" and the Destroyer cover, "The Spirit of Giving," which, due primarily to his shockingly magnificent vocal turn, may very well be one of the best songs this band has ever committed to tape (ie, it's one of the best songs you'll ever hear, since those're the kinds of songs which this band writes).
"My Rights Versus Yours," the lead single, is fairly representative of the album, as a whole--a slightly more somber and restrained affair, on the whole, which sounds like a cross between Twin Cinema (the band's second masterpiece and third album, released in 2005) and Newman's long-forgotten solo record, Slow Wonder. Great hooks still abound, but there's less explosive energy and reckless, everything-plus-the-kitchen-sink production. Things have a bit of a folksy feel which, as interviewers have correctly elicited from Newman, recalls rather distinctly a certain band they call Fleetwood Mac. The record is unashamedly ambitious both in terms of its regally complex arrangements (not to mention vocal harmonies!) and its semi-radical re-alignment of the band's sound. It's not radical music by any standard, but it's certainly a pronounced shift.
It's nothing at which Twin Cinema didn't hint, but it's still pretty sizeable of a change. Really, the only two songs which I think feel slightly out of place are the only two songs which sound like The New Pornographers--"All the Things That Go to Make Heaven and Earth" and "Mutiny, I Promise You." They're not bad songs (although "Heaven" is a barely-disguised rewrite of "It's Only Divine Right"), and "Mutiny" has some jaw-dropping moments of its own, but the real thrills are in the new sounds and arrangements.
"All the Old Showstoppers" piles on the campy fun and some great harmonies, "Challengers" (the first title-track not to kick off a New Pornos album!) features a typically gorgeous lead vocal from Neko Case (as does the pitch-perfect "Go Places"), "Failsafe" busts out the tremolo guitar and puts Kevin Shields to shame, and the Bejar tracks, as I said, kick untold amounts of ass. I swear, I will never understand how I can hate 90% of the man's solo recordings, as Destroyer, and love to fucking death every piece of music he writes with this band. It's uncanny.
"Myriad Harbour" alone has more gems than do most entire albums:
"I took a train, I took a plane...ah, who cares? You always end up in the city."
"I said to John, 'Do you think the girls here ever wonder how they got so pretty? Oh, well...I do...'"
"All the girls fall into ruin--droppin' outta school, breakin' daddy's heart--just to hang around."
"Someone, somewhere, asked me, 'Is there anything I can help you with?' ...All I ever wanted help with was you."
And to make things that much cooler, the band has again hired a producer simply to assist with the drum sound (I can't remember the man's name, for some reason...sorry!), which IS FUCKING AMAZING, YET AGAIN!!!!! I'm a stickler for perfect drum sonics, and these, at least in my book, are as close to perfect as I'm likely to hear. Cavernous, crsip, sweeping, and melodic all at the same time, they literally get me weak in the knees. If Mass Romantic had sounded like this, nobody would be talking about Pet Sounds, anymore. That's a fact.
Anyway, buy it. This album is good enough to change water into wine. No joke. I was talking about the Bejar song, "The Spirit of Giving," earlier--need I really say more than, "There is an album upon which Neko Case sings and doesn't deliver its best vocal performance"? I hope not.
I also hope that you love it as much as I do. Buy it and listen! Support artists who support fans! Holla!
I was only there on Sunday, and got the worst sunburn, but seeing Menomena, Jamie Lidell and Of Montreal was well worth it. I was too tired and hot to make myself to go any other acts. /derail
